Trump's model UN

Summary

Today, Explained — "Trump's model UN" (Jan 28, 2026)

Podcast: Today, Explained
Hosts: Sean Rameswaram, Noel King
Guests: Paul Beckett (The Atlantic), Monica Duffy Toft (Tufts Fletcher School)

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Episode Overview

This episode digs into former President Donald J. Trump’s newest international initiative, the "Board of Peace," announced during the Davos conference. The hosts evaluate whether Trump's so-called "model UN" is a genuine attempt to solve global crises like Gaza's reconstruction, a personal power play, or a harbinger of broader disruption to the post-WWII world order. They discuss international responses to the initiative, question its legitimacy and transparency, and analyze its implications for global power dynamics, especially as the U.S., Russia, and China jockey for influence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is the Board of Peace?

[01:27 - 04:02]

• Paul Beckett likens it to “a United Nations mixed with a high-end golf club,” where Trump personally selects who is invited.
• Its stated origin is to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction, operating as an alternative to the UN with greater flexibility.
• The charter is intentionally vague, making no mention of Gaza and instead positioning the Board as a global peace and reconstruction agency.
• Trump serves as both the inaugural Chairman and the U.S. representative; the position is not tied to the U.S. presidency.

“It’s easiest to think of it as a United Nations mixed with a high-end golf club. … He is the chairman, he is the owner of the club and it is by invitation only.” — Paul Beckett [01:30, 02:44]

2. Membership Mechanics & Power Structure

[04:07 - 05:16]

• Members join by Trump’s personal invitation.
• No fee for a three-year term, but a $1 billion “donation” (within the first year) earns a permanent seat—mirroring the power structure of the UN Security Council.
• Invitations have gone to leaders Trump personally likes, spanning Argentina’s Milei, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, and notably, Vladimir Putin.
• Canada was invited but then dropped after critical remarks by PM Mark Carney.

“If you want a permanent seat... you or your country pays a billion dollars. That way you get what would, I suppose, be akin to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.” — Paul Beckett [04:42]

“Group, I like every single one of them. Can you believe it? Usually I have two or three I can't stand.” – Donald J. Trump [05:05]

3. Motivations & Criticisms

[07:41 – 09:23]

• The Board is seen as both an alternative to the slow, gridlocked UN and a vehicle for Trump’s personal brand and preferred alliances.
• Criticisms include lack of accountability, transparency, and the ambiguity about ownership and succession—Trump could remain Chair even after leaving office.

“It’s very hard to see what the accountability mechanisms [are], what the transparency is—where does the money go? ... this isn’t a United States exercise, this is a Trump exercise.” — Paul Beckett [08:39]

• The initiative is sometimes mocked as a “money grab” or PR stunt, but also raises real anxieties about the decline of traditional multilateralism.

4. Board of Peace and Gaza

[10:05 – 11:45]

• Trump’s initiative aligns with his legacy-building, leveraging dramatic architectural renderings and real estate development tropes for Gaza’s future.
• The billion-dollar contributions from member states appear earmarked for Gaza’s reconstruction, but concerns swirl about “insider’s networks” and contract favoritism.

“The question then is…who gets a contract? How is it decided? How do you stop it becoming the kind of insider's network for the lucrative contracts that will inevitably follow efforts to do post-conflict reconstruction wherever it is in the world?” — Paul Beckett [10:27]

5. Branding & Trump’s Legacy

[11:10 – 12:06]

• The name “Board of Peace” is seen as canny marketing, reflecting Trump's self-image and persistent pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize.
• The concept is less about concrete definitions of peace and more about optics and legacy.

“President Trump is a superb marketer. I think it is a very catchy title and one that fits with the way that he has portrayed himself as president.” — Paul Beckett [11:16]

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Deep Dive: Remaking the World Order

1. Understanding the World Order

[16:08 – 18:47]

• Monica Duffy Toft reviews the post-WWII “rules-based order,” rooted in institutions like the UN and designed to inhibit forceful expansion and third-world wars.
• The traditional order aimed at institutionalized peace and prosperity but now feels increasingly unstable.

2. Sphere of Influence & U.S. Strategy

[18:05 – 21:35]

• Trump’s foreign policy is described as seeking both a reinforced U.S. sphere in the Western hemisphere, and simultaneous global reach elsewhere.
• Examples: U.S. intervention in Venezuela (cutting off ties with Russia/China, regime change), pressure over Greenland, maintaining influence in Asia.
• Moves are justified in national security documents (explicitly calling for U.S. preeminence in the Western hemisphere).

“The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity, a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to.” — National Security Strategy excerpt, read [19:26]

3. Russia, China, and the New Great Powers

• The episode compares U.S. actions to similar patterns in Russian and Chinese foreign policy.
• There’s a sense that the U.S. is adopting the “iron laws” rhetoric of force and/or dominance, often associated with Putin or Xi.

“We live in a world… governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” — Stephen Miller (quoted by Noel King) [21:50]

4. Force, Reputation, and Blowback

[22:24 – 26:57]

• Toft warns that “quick victories” like those in Iran or Venezuela—however successful in the short term—undermine alliances and long-term U.S. credibility.
• The unpredictability, use of sanctions/tariffs even on allies, and growing reliance on shows of force may provoke balancing and hedging from traditional partners.

“What’s a shame here…over the longer term, [this approach] erodes… the American reputation and over the longer term is actually undermining our interests. …[U.S.] seems to like this muscular foreign policy. You get the quick victories… but over the longer term…” — Monica Duffy Toft [22:27]

“Now Trump loves tariffs, and we're using them not only against adversaries, but against allies—that’s the difference, right, is that we're threatening our allies.” — Monica Duffy Toft [24:24]

5. Where Is This All Heading?

• There’s palpable anxiety about increasing instability, the potential loss of U.S. reliability, and the emergence of a “Wild West” power environment:
  • Allies are uniting for self-protection, while adversaries take cues for their own assertiveness.
  • The episode closes with questions about escalation and whether the “prestige projects” and new aggressive posture lead to broader conflict or further destabilize the existing order.

“What’s unnerving is that it really does seem to be one individual… that has a lot of say about where we’re headed.” — Monica Duffy Toft [25:15]

“So I think we're in kind of a Wild West situation. And the question is, how are [rivals] going to respond to it?” — Monica Duffy Toft [26:57]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Board of Peace as Golf Club:
  “He is the chairman, he is the owner of the club and it is by invitation only.” — Paul Beckett [02:44]
• Permanent Membership by Cash:
  “If you want a permanent seat... you or your country pays a billion dollars.” — Paul Beckett [04:42]
• Trump on Personal Preferences:
  “Group, I like every single one of them... Usually I have two or three that I can't stand.” – Donald J. Trump [05:05]
• UN Critique:
  “All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter... It’s empty words. And empty words don't solve war.” — Donald J. Trump [08:28]
• Sphere of Influence Defined:
  “Control without rule... there’s sovereignty on paper. …But their strategic choices are restrained by the great power.” — Monica Duffy Toft [18:05]
• Iron Laws of Power:
  “We live in a world…governed by strength, governed by force, governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” — Stephen Miller (quoted) [21:50]
• Wild West Warning:
  “So, I think we’re in kind of a Wild West situation.” — Monica Duffy Toft [26:57]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00 — Trump announces “Board of Peace” at Davos
• 01:27 — What is the Board of Peace?
• 03:10 — The Board’s vague mission and Charter
• 04:07 — Membership is by invitation; billion-dollar buy-ins
• 05:05 — Trump on hand-picked members
• 08:28 — Trump criticizes the UN as ineffective
• 10:27 — Gaza reconstruction, real estate interests, and contract questions
• 16:39 — Historical overview of the world order (post-WWII)
• 18:05 — Spheres of influence and U.S. foreign policy goals
• 19:26 — US National Security Strategy on Western hemisphere
• 21:50 — “Iron laws of the world” and the new power paradigm
• 22:24 — U.S. force vs. reputation and long-term interests
• 25:15 — Where are these quick victories leading?
• 26:57 — “Wild West” world order anxieties

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Tone and Style

• The discussion is analytical but laced with dry humor, particularly regarding Trump’s penchant for spectacle and self-promotion.
• The mood is equal parts skeptical (regarding the logistics and motives of Trump's initiative) and somber (regarding the implications for world peace and stability).

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For New Listeners

If you missed this episode, you’ll come away with:

• A detailed breakdown of Trump’s new quasi-international organization and the way it both mimics and attacks the UN model.
• Insights into how global power dynamics, spheres of influence, and traditional alliances are being reshaped in real time.
• A sense of unease about the erosion of old diplomatic norms and what Monica Duffy Toft dubs the emergence of a “Wild West” on the world stage.

Transcript

[Donald J. Trump]

Well, this is a very exciting day long in the making and many countries have just received their notice and everybody wants to be a part of it.

[Noel King]

In the announcement at Davos of who's joining the President's new initiative, the Board of Peace, it was clear that everybody did not want to be a part of it. No France, no UK but Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, El Salvador. Trump talked a lot about conflict.

[Donald J. Trump]

They have to give up their weapons and if they don't do that, it's going to be the end of them. And in Nigeria, we're annihilating terrorists who are killing Christians.

[Noel King]

Though he had some nice moments.

[Donald J. Trump]

I think it's gonna happen to end decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed and forge a beautiful, everlasting and glorious peace.

[Noel King]

So what is Trump's Board of Peace? Temu un. A money grab. Something that he's gonna ditch when he gets embarrassed by the takers. I'm so sorry, Azerbaijan. Or is it part of a bold plan to remake a troubled world? That's ahead on Today Explained. This is a Monday.com ad, the same Monday.com designed for every team. The same Monday.com with built in AI scaling your work from day one.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

The same Monday.comwith an easy and intuitive setup.

[Noel King]

Go to Monday.com and try it for free.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

You're listening to TODAY Explained Paul Beckett.

[Paul Beckett]

Senior editor at the Atlantic.

[Noel King]

What is the Board of Peace?

[Paul Beckett]

It's easiest to think of it as a United nations mixed with a high end golf club. This is Donald Trump's effort to have a body that will first, and this is its original rationale, oversee the reconstruction of Gaza. That's the context that brought about this. The 10,046th meeting of the Security Council is called to order.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The Board of Peace, which will be led by President Trump, remains the cornerstone of our effort. The Board will coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, facilitate Gaza's development and support a technocratic committee of Palestinians responsible for day to day operations.

[Paul Beckett]

It is backed by the United Nations. In that context, how it has been constituted and the way that he is.

[Donald J. Trump]

Pitching it, everybody wants to be a.

[Paul Beckett]

Part of it, is that this will effectively make an alternate to the UN that can go around the world, intervening wherever it likes.

[Donald J. Trump]

Today, the world is richer, safer and much more peaceful than it was just one year ago. We put out all those fires. A lot of people didn't know, including me, that some of those wars were going on.

[Paul Beckett]

He is the chairman, he is the owner of the club and it is by invitation only.

[Noel King]

And what is it supposed to do.

[Paul Beckett]

In his telling, in Gaza, it is to oversee new institutions designed to try and get Gaza back on its feet. And you may have seen in Davos, Jared Kushner presented very elaborate architectural renderings of what Gaza might look like in the future.

[Narrator/Announcer]

It could be a hope, it could be a destination, have a lot of industry, and really be a place that the people there can thrive, have great employment.

[Paul Beckett]

That's what the UN actually gave permission for. The weird thing about it is its charter says nothing about Gaza and really says it will be there to bounce around as it sees fit. And the digs at the UN are pretty obvious. The preamble says that the reason for the board is because, quote, durable peace.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Requires pragmatic judgment, common sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed.

[Paul Beckett]

That's the end of that quote. But you go down a couple more graphs, paragraphs, and it says it is trying to be, quote, a more nimble.

[Narrator/Announcer]

And effective international peace building body.

[Paul Beckett]

The UN is the only other institution of its type in the world.

[Noel King]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So how do countries join the Board of Peace? How do you get on?

[Paul Beckett]

You get asked, you get asked by Donald J. Trump. So it's by his invitation. It's to heads of government. If he invites you and you say yes, there's no membership fee to join. However, if you go that route, you will just be on for a three year term and he can decide whether you stay on or not. If you want a permanent seat, the.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Three year membership shall not apply to member states that contribute more than USD $1 billion in cash funds to the Board of Peace. Within the first year, you or your.

[Paul Beckett]

Country pays a billion dollars. That way you get what would, I suppose, be akin to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

[Noel King]

And so Trump himself is inviting people. Who's he invited so far?

[Paul Beckett]

Lots of heads of state, which, as he said at Davos, are all people that he likes. I mean, if I lined them all up on stage and he said, this.

[Donald J. Trump]

Group, I like every single one of them. Can you believe it? Usually I have about two or three that I can't stand. Usually I have two or three that I don't like. I don't find him up here. I like every one of these people.

[Paul Beckett]

That would include Argentina. He's obviously very close to. Javier Milei, Belarus, Moscow's closest ally, Egypt, which is run by the. The man that Trump once called his favorite dictator, Hungary, which is run by Viktor Orban, a fellow traveler. In Trump's type of Right wing politics, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. So they have accepted a bunch more have been invited and are, let's just say, mulling it over. Canada was invited but has already been uninvited because of what Prime Minister Carney said at Davos last week.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must.

[Paul Beckett]

So that seems to have gone down quite badly and he's now had his invitation rescinded.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Truth Social Dear Prime Minister Carney, Please let this letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada's joining what will be the most prestigious board of leaders ever assembled at any time. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Paul Beckett]

Vladimir Putin has been invited, so probably prospects of the Board of Peace ever working on Ukraine may be slim or not. But he hasn't said whether he'll join join yet.

[Noel King]

You got to pay a billion dollars. You or your government has to pay a billion dollars, no small fee. What do the people joining the Board of Peace get out of this?

[Paul Beckett]

Proximity to Donald J. Trump I think is probably the simplest thing. They will have a say in world affairs if this takes off. So if you're a very small country and if you can afford it, you know you will have a hand in voting and steering post conflict efforts around the world if it all comes to pass. It's hard to envisage how it will work from just reading the Charter. So huge amount of this has yet to be decided or at least elaborated on.

[Noel King]

Let me ask you about the UN here. So respectfully, you can't spell dysfunction without the un. The Security Council is supposed to manage global conflict and keep the peace. The last couple decades have not been great. Russia and China have permanent seats. Makes it hard to get anything done. So I wonder about the argument that somebody should come up with another way to handle global peace. And here's Donald J. Trump making an effort in his way. What do you think?

[Paul Beckett]

I think it is a very fair point. It's very hard to find people who think that the UN is all that it could be, including Trump. He went there in September and stood up in front of the United nations and said what is the purpose of.

[Donald J. Trump]

Of the United Nations?

[Paul Beckett]

You know, you said it was too weak to step in and end wars.

[Donald J. Trump]

All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It's Empty words. And empty words don't solve war, all.

[Paul Beckett]

Those kinds of things. So, yes, you don't. I don't think anybody would want to be in the position of saying, why do we need an alternative? Because the UN Is working so well. The flip side is it's very hard to see what the accountability mechanisms here, what the transparency is, where does the money go? You know, they just said, we'll put the money in reputable banks. It's like, okay, you know, and, and the other thing here that I think could get complicated is this isn't a United States exercise, this is a Trump exercise. Nowhere does it say that he has to step down when he starts being president. In fact, in the charter, he is the only named person.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Donald J. Trump shall serve as inaugural Chairman of the Board of Peace, and he shall separately serve as inaugural Representative of the United States of America.

[Paul Beckett]

So in theory, after he leaves office, he will stay as chairman and then invite his successor or not, because he gets to make the invitations. He will be in a position to invite the President of the United States to, to serve on this board. So it just gets very complicated when you stop dealing with an institution and start dealing with a private members club so closely associated with a private citizen.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

Yeah.

[Noel King]

I want to bring this back to Gaza because those renderings that you mentioned, they are remarkable, right? They show a developed Gaza skyline, tall buildings, all the things you associate with Donald Trump. If the, if the stated purpose right now is we're going to help rebuild Gaza and you've got a bunch of real estate guys involved, where do you think that may be headed?

[Paul Beckett]

I think the billion dollars that countries pay for that permanent seat is designed to provide funds for the reconstruction of Gaza. And so good thing, I think the question then is, okay, but who gets a contract? How is it decided? How do you stop it becoming the kind of insider's network for the lucrative contracts that will inevitably follow efforts to do post conflict reconstruction wherever it is in the world?

[Noel King]

How do you see? You read the Charter, You've been looking into this. It's called the Board of Peace. How are they defining peace.

[Paul Beckett]

As a goal?

[Monica Duffy Toft]

Okay, okay.

[Noel King]

They're in good company.

[Paul Beckett]

As a good thing. If this had been in Europe, it probably would have been called the Board for Reconstruction and Vitalization of the Territory called Gaza or something incredibly tedious. I mean, Board of Peace. President Trump is a superb marketer. I think it is a very catchy title and one that fits with the way that he has portrayed himself as president.

[Donald J. Trump]

I ended those eight wars in nine.

[Paul Beckett]

Months he was openly soliciting for a Nobel Peace Prize.

[Donald J. Trump]

Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Paul Beckett]

There's a lot of peace in his legacy building and I would. I think that's probably the most helpful context to look at it.

[Noel King]

Paul Beckett is a senior editor at the Atlantic. Coming up, it's not just the UN Security Council that President Trump wants to redo. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney obliquely accuses Trump of wanting to remake the world Order. What's that? Support for Today Explained comes from Vanta. Vanta says if you run a business, you know how important it is to keep your customers trust. Frankly, says Vanta, maintaining that trust can make or break your business makes sense. But the more your business grows, adds Vanta, the more complex your security and compliance tools can get. And left unchecked, Vanta ads that can turn into business chaos. And furthermore, chaos isn't exactly something that customers trust, nor is it a great security strategy. That's where Vanta comes in, says Vanta. Vanta says you can think of them as your always on AI powered security expert who can scale with you. How do they do that? She asks. Vanta says they can automate compliance, continuously monitor your control and let you look at your entire compliance and risk ecosystem from one place so you can see the whole picture. Perhaps you're a fast growing startup like Cursor. Perhaps you're an enterprise like something called Snowflake. Vanta says they can fit into your existing workflows. You can stop spending so much time worrying about compliance and instead focus on your customers. You can get [e-mail] explain. That's V A N T A dot com explained. Vanna.com explained.

[Narrator/Announcer]

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[Noel King]

Today explained. I'm Noel King with Monica Duffy Toft. She's a professor of international politics at Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and director of the center for Strategic Studies. All right, so it is unbelievably, Monica, still January of 2026, and we have had really significant events in Venezuela, in Greenland or over Greenland with the EU and NATO. And all of this is leading people to say President Donald Trump is trying to remake the world order. What is the world order?

[Monica Duffy Toft]

So the world order was established after World War II.

[Donald J. Trump]

Far into the night, the happy crowd.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Screamed their relief at the end of the greatest war in history.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

I'm Kenneth Cowell from Arizona.

[Donald J. Trump]

Okay, boys. Goddamn war is over.

[Narrator/Announcer]

What are you gonna say about that?

[Paul Beckett]

This is the happiest day of my life.

[Donald J. Trump]

That's a wonderful, wonderful thing. We want peace and prosperity for the.

[Narrator/Announcer]

World as a whole.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

And so the United States and its Western allies decided to establish rules that would govern the international system. And along with that, a series of institutions, including, by the way, the United Nations.

[Donald J. Trump]

These representatives of 50 nations, they have.

[Paul Beckett]

Made a beginning, a brave beginning that can build a mighty structure for peace.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The time for action is here now.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

And what they were trying to do is set up a system of law, international law, norms and rules in order to prevent a third world war. So the idea was that force, the use of force, the use of the military, was no longer going to be an acceptable form of politicking. Right. International politicking on the global arena.

[Noel King]

All right, so this is the thing that President Trump seeks to change or to undo or to disrupt. You've written about a philosophy that you think is relevant right now. What's the philosophy?

[Monica Duffy Toft]

He's trying to reestablish the US Sphere of influence, its control over the Western hemisphere. Right. In a sphere of influence, it's best understood as control without rule. So with states within a sphere. Right. There's sovereignty on paper. They have their own government. Right. Their own borders, their own money. And they have international recognition. But their strategic choices are restrained by the great power. And in this case, it's the United States. And so the United States, what it's doing is it's saying under President Trump and his administration is that they can't freely choose alliances, trade partners without crossing lines or without getting agreement from the United States.

[Noel King]

What's the sphere of influence that the US Is seeking? So we clearly want to have a lot of influence in Venezuela.

[Donald J. Trump]

We need that for ourselves. We need that for the world.

[Noel King]

Greenland, the president has been very clear there as well.

[Donald J. Trump]

Probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force.

[Noel King]

Although he climbed down. He climbed down.

[Donald J. Trump]

Now everyone's saying, oh, good.

[Noel King]

What other nations, what other regions do we see Trump wanting to have influence over? And what does he want them to do or not do?

[Monica Duffy Toft]

We know that he wants the Western sphere under US Control. This was part of the national security strategy that was released, and it's very clear that the United States is going to dominate the region.

[Narrator/Announcer]

National Security Strategy of the United States of America, page 17. The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity, a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to. In the reach of.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

You can look at what it's done in Venezuela, where it just said Venezuela can no longer have relations with China, trade relations, formerly with China. And with Russia shutting off the oil.

[Narrator/Announcer]

You have to understand, why does China need their oil? Why does Russia need their oil? Why does Iran need their oil? They're not even in this continent. This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

But paradoxically, it also wants to have global reach. And so now we're seeing the tensions. There's a flotilla, as Trump uses it, moving to the Middle east in order to get Iran to Behave.

[Donald J. Trump]

We have a big flotilla.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

And then also the United States wants to maintain its leverage in Asia. It has allies there, of course, Japan and Taiwan and South Korea. So on the one hand it's really pressing its case in the Western hemisphere, but then it's also insisting that it should have some leverage in these other regions. And the one that's probably the most problematic is Asia, because of course, if the United States states can, you know, have pointy elbows in its own sphere, why China could make the argument, then why can't we?

[Noel King]

Okay, so this makes me wonder then, who are the other great powers? Who are the other nations trying to influence the smaller nations here?

[Monica Duffy Toft]

So there's the top two are probably the Russian Federation, of course, which invaded Ukraine in 2014 and then again in 2022. And Putin's made it very clear that he wants to determine sort Ukrainians foreign policy, so much so that it doesn't want it joining the EU or NATO and it doesn't want NATO expanded. So the Russian Federation is one and of course the other one is China, whose economy is booming, has a huge population and of course a large landmass. The big three are the United States, the Russian Federation, and then of course the People's Republic of China.

[Noel King]

Okay, so this gets interesting because it makes me think of the way Xi and Putin talk about their objectives in the world. So let's go back to early January after the United States spirited Nicolas Maduro out of Venezuela. Stephen Miller got on television and he.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Said, we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world. But are you saying since the beginning of time.

[Noel King]

It was striking, it was a striking statement. It reminded me of the way Vladimir Putin talks about the world. It reminded me of the way quietly, not publicly, she talks about the world. In trying to establish spheres of influence and to establish dominance, is the United States just doing what Russia and China are already doing?

[Monica Duffy Toft]

Noel, that is a great way to put it.

[Noel King]

Thank you.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

But what I would say is. It really is, it's a lovely way to put it. But what I would say is we were already there. So the United States superpower has always been trade and free trade. And so what's paradoxical here is that we did not need to use force to do that. And now we're using force at a time in history when we're finding that it's not as effective in securing our national strategic goals. So what's kind of A shame here is that the United States is. Yes, it seems to. Under President Trump, he seems to like this muscular foreign policy. You get the quick victories, right? Venezuela was a quick victory. You're in and out quickly. But over the longer term, it's eroding, first of all, the American reputation. And over the longer term is actually undermining our interests. What you're gonna see is a balancing against the United States. You're already seeing the hedging. You're already seeing that where you've got Mark Carney of Canada declaring, we know.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

We are in a new world order and we cannot rely on our allies. We cannot rely on the United States. And he's not alone.

[Noel King]

You said the United States is using force, and I wonder to what degree you think that's true. So Venezuela, yes, we did go in. It was a. It was a quick mission. I think we could put it that way. Greenland, we did not actually do anything, nor did we even end up levying tariffs on Europe over the whole Greenland fight. President Trump backed off. So when you say we're using force, how do you see that? Is it. Is it. You're not talking boots on the ground, right?

[Monica Duffy Toft]

Potentially. I mean, the Trump administration did say under with the Greenland operation before it de. Escalated, thankfully, that they wouldn't discount putting American forces in there and reestablishing those bases after the war.

[Donald J. Trump]

We gave Greenland back to Denmark. How stupid were we to do that?

[Monica Duffy Toft]

I wasn't fully confident that the US Wasn't going to deploy troops. And I'm pretty sure the Europeans, they feared that the US Was going to take that step. We love sanctions, and now Trump loves tariffs, and we're using them not only against adversaries, but against allies. Noel, that's the difference, right, is that we're threatening our allies. And because the United States is so quick with the trigger, we can't be trusted that we're not to use force.

[Noel King]

It does indeed feel like we are barreling towards something in this moment. We talked in the first half of the show about President Trump's Board of Peace and this kind of, at this juncture, minor bid to replace the United Nations. We've talked about the international norms that are being upended. What do you think we are barreling toward? And try not to scare us too much.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

What's unnerving is that it really does seem to be one individual within this administration that has a lot of say about where we're headed. The question is how far is this administration willing to push this? And my concern, Noel, is that Iran was a successful operation. At least they've sold it at that.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Choose your word, obliterating, destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

The experts say, no, we didn't denude the nuclear capacity of Iran for that long. But they see it as a victory.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The most complex and secretive military operation in history.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

And then secondarily, Venezuela was quick and dirty, right? We got in and we got out.

[Donald J. Trump]

Captured Maduro in the dead of night. It was dark.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

And so these mini successes may embolden them a little bit more. And the question is, how are allies going to respond? And we see how they're responding. They're uniting. They're saying, we've got to keep this together because we cannot. The United States is now not a reliable partner. And of course, they feel as if they're fighting for that Western liberal order and that Ukraine is the front line. And then the adversaries, the Russian Federation and China, what lessons are they taking from this? China, I think, is sort of, you know, under President Xi is kind of thumping his chest and saying, I'm the big boy in the room, right? We're stable, we're not going to use force, Right? And then Putin is looking at this smirking, thinking, great, if the United States can get away with these shenanigans, then I can too, right? So I think we're in kind of a Wild west situation. And the question is, how are they going to respond to it?

[Noel King]

Monica Duffy Toft of the Tufts Fletcher School. Peter Bellin on Rosen produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited Bridger Dunigan and David Tadashore engineered. And Andrea Lopez crusado checked the facts. I'm Noel King. It's Today explained.

[Monica Duffy Toft]

Sam.